Few Americans learn American history

Even fewer Canadians learn Canadian history

In a wonderfully written book called “The North Star: Canada and the Civil War plots against Lincon” historian Julian Sher chronicles the involvement of Canadians in support of the Confederacy in the U.S. Civil War, the adulation for Jefferson Davis in Montreal, the role a Canadian played in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the key role of another Canadian in tracking down and killing John Wilkes Booth after Lincoln’s murder.

Canadians like to think of themselves as the place where enslaved blacks moved to escape slavery and enjoy freedom. Americans like to think Abraham Lincoln was anti-slavery, Neither of these beliefs is entirely true.

In August 1862, Lincoln wrote to newspaper publisher Horace Greely:

“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not to either save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”

John Wilkes Booth was at the time a famous actor, and Lincoln enjoyed his plays. Booth was no fan of Lincoln’s and plotted to kidnap him, and ultimately to assassinate him. John Surratt was a Canadian co-conspirator of Booth, was instrumental in assisting Booth with his plans and in carrying out Lincoln’s assassination and in Booth’s escape.

Ed Doherty was another Canadian, one who fought with the Union Army in the Civil War. He was the leader of the law enforcement team that tracked down Booth and eventually shot and killed Booth. Canadians had a key role in both sides of the Lincoln assassination, and on both sides of the Civil War.

Until 2017, a plaque honoring Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy hung in the Hudson Bay store in Montreal. The Niagara region of Canada was home to many Southern slaveowners who fled to Canada post-war. Canadians were as much pro-slavery as anti-slavery.

There is an old adage “history is written by the victors” but a better adage would be that history is written by politicians to create narratives that support their bids for power. Sir John A. MacDonald spoke to the 1864 Confederation Conference in Charlottetown calling the Southern states role in the Civil War a “gallant defense” by the Souther Republic. Three years later he was Canada’s first Prime Minister.

The American Civil War was not fought over slavery but over power. Slavery became an issue only when Lincoln adopted it as an issue well into his Presidency to rally support for the Union. More Americans died in the violence of the Civil War than in all other wars the Americans have been engaged in at any time in history including the two World Wars, the Crimean War, the Korean War and the Vietnamese War - in fact more than all of those wars combined. It was never certain the Union would prevail and at many times it looked like the South would win.

As Lincoln reportedly once quipped: “History is only history if it is true”.